Graphic Lit: Vintage and Independent

In what may be an expression of nostalgia, we carry a lot of the genius of newspaper-published graphic literature, a Golden Age that lasted from the 1930s to the departure of Bill Watterson's Calvin & Hobbes. On this page we feature our stock in the classics and the independents that carry on the spirit even in the age of DC and Marvel, which rate a separate page here on the website.

Pogo volume 2: Bona Fide Balderdash

Even though Pogo had been in syndication for less than two years as this volume begins, Walt Kelly's long professional experience (including seven years creating Pogo stories for comic books) had him at the peak of his powers, and this book features page after page of gorgeously drawn, hilarious vaudevillian dialogue and action among the swamp denizens, as well as Kelly's increasingly sharp-tongued political satire — especially on display during the 1952 election season.

Kelly was famous for his prolific creation of recurring characters, and by the end of this second volume, the count will already have topped over one hundred. New arrivals include Tammanany the Tiger, the voluble P.T. Bridgeport, the sinister Sarcophagus MacAbre (with his funereal speech balloons), Uncle Antler the bull moose... and Bewitched, Bothered, and Bemildred, the adorable trio of bats.

The two years of daily strips in this volume (all the strips from 1951 and 1952) have been collected before but in now long out of print books; and even there they were not as meticulously restored and reproduced as in this new series.Bona Fide Balderdash also reprints, literally for the first time ever in full color, the two full years of Sunday pages, also carefully restored and color-corrected, shot from the finest copies available.

This second volume is once again edited and designed by the cartoonist’s daughter, Carolyn Kelly, who is also handling much of the restoration work. It includes a new introduction by the legendary author, recording artist, and satirist Stan Freberg, who was not only a friend of Kelly’s but the voice of Albert the Alligator in the I Go Pogo: Pogo for President movie. There are also more extensive annotations by comic strip historian and expert R.C. Harvey, as well as additional historical information from writer Mark Evanier.

WHISTLESTOP BOOKSHOP

Whistlestop Bookshop is an independent bookseller in Carlisle PA. Founded in 1985, Whistlestop sells new and secondhand books in all categories and a wide variety of sidelines, from magazines to puzzles, literary t-shirts to cds and dvds, from totes to local honey. Our mission is to get the right books in the right hands at the right time.